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June 10, 2009

Newell and Corinne Dodds Sanders

"Newell Sanders, manufacturer and United States Senator, 1912, 1913, was born in Owen County, Indiana, July 12, 1850, the son of John Sanders and Miriam Coffey Sanders, grandson of John Sanders and Nancy Briscoe Sanders and great grandson of Henry Sanders and Dicey Blake Sanders, South Carolina. Henry Sanders was a Baptist preacher and a Revolutionary soldier. Mr. Sanders' maternal grandfather, Reuben Coffey was a pioneer Baptist preacher and in 1834 was one of the founders of Franklin College, the Baptist college of Indiana. Mr. Sanders' parents and grandparents were among the numbers of Southerners who settled in southern Indiana about 1830.

"Newell Sanders entered Indiana State University at Bloomington where he graduated in 1873 with a degree of B.S. After conducting a book store in Bloomington from 1873 to 1878 he decided to enter the manufacturing field. He spent a year in northern shops gaining experience and settled in Chattanooga on the advice of Gen. John T. Wilder in 1878. He opened a factory to manufacture plows. This was the first factory in the South to make improved plows. In 1883 the business was incorporated as the Chattanooga Plow Company with Newell Sanders as president and general manager. Under his management it developed rapidly, doing a large domestic business and enjoying an extensive export trade. In 1901 he established the Newell Sanders Plow Company of which he was sole owner. In 1915 he again became president of the Chattanooga Plow Company, a position he retained until 1919 when he sold the company to the Internal Harvester Company. He sold the Newell Sanders Plow Company in 1927 and retired from business after having manufactured plows in Chattanooga for fifty years.

"His business interests, however, have not been confined to plow manufacturing. He organized the Chattanooga Steamboat Company in 1891 for the purpose of operating a line of boats on the Tennessee River to St. Louis and served as its first president. He was the first president of the Tennessee River Improvement Association and appeared many times before Congress in that interest. He was president of the National Association of Agriculture Implement and Vehicle Manufacturers from 1907 to 1909 and vice president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 1927, 1929. He is a director of the Hamilton National Bank and of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway.

"Mr. Sanders served as chairman of the Tennessee Republican State Committee 1894-1896 and again in 1906-1912. In both these periods Republican governors of Tennessee were elected. He was a member of the Republican National Committee, 1912-1916, and a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920 and 1924. He was appointed by the Governor of Tennessee to the United States Senate and was the first Republican Senator from Tennessee in forty years. He took his seat April 8, 1912, his successor taking his seat in February, 1913. He led the prohibition movement in Tennessee which became a dry state before the national prohibition amendment was passed. In the Senate he was the leader in the passage of a law against the shipment of intoxicating liquor from 'wet' states into 'dry' states.

"Mrs. Newell Sanders was Miss Corinne Dodds of Bloomington before her marriage. The marriage took place October 28, 1873. She was a graduate of the Indiana State University of the Class of 1873. She was active in church and Red Cross work and was president of the Chattanooga Free Kindergarten Association during its long existence. She was the first woman in the Southern states to vote**. Mr. and Mrs. Sanders traveled together extensively in this country and abroad. They were four years in the same class in college, receiving the same training and acquiring the same ideals and success has been result of their joint efforts. The credit is due as much to one as to the other. Mrs. Sanders died in 1929. Their children are Norinne who married James Harvey Anderson; Mildred who married Walter Blair Wright; Pansy who married Ben Matthews Allison; Wendell who died at the age of seventeen; Dot who died young and Sherman who died in 1927 at the age of forty-six.

"Mr. Sanders home is on the east brow of Lookout Mountain next to the Lookout Mountain Incline. Since his retirement from business Mr. Sanders has given his time to the development of the Chattanooga-Lookout Mountain Park, on the sides of Lookout Mountain, and to other public affairs"

[Newell Sanders was the son of John and Miriam Coffey Sanders. Mirian was a daughter of the Rev. Reuben A. and Martha "Polly" Dowell Coffey. Newell was born Jul. 12, 1850 and died Jan. 26, 1939 in Chattanooga. Corinne died in 1929. He is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga and Corinne is probably there with him.]

**Interesting! I wonder how this is known?

Thanks to Richard Beu for providing this news article and photo, proving that Mrs. Sanders was the first woman to vote in the state of TN. His GG-grandfather was I.E. Ireland, also pictured. Unfortunately, the date this was published in this Chattanooga newspaper was not preserved on the clipping I received.

Source: Zella Armstrong, Author, The history of Hamilton County and Chattanooga, Tennessee: Vol I, 2 volumes (Johnson City, TN: The Overmountain Press, 1992), . Photos from the source credited to Judd. The book is available at Amazon.com, as well as other on-line book sellers. It can probably be found on Amazon at this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932807917

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